we have to remember these young men in afghanistan, and to a lesser extent in iraq, but in afghanistan, they're agrarian, so when the planting and harvesting seasons come and go, the attrition rates wax and wane accordingly. the general in charge of our iranian training monitors the situation. i don't have the number, but it's in the number of 10,000 and growing in the literacy rate, the soldiers we've accrued learning english. you can develop it, and it's a little more challenging to develop the leaders to lead them. >> if you could get to my office maybe kind of what you see those trend lines look like over the last several years and where we're going in literacy atta attainment within our security force that afghanistan has, as well as the retention rate? can you do that? >> yes. the last time i touched them, the trend line on attrition was testing positive, which means we were gaining control of it. the trend line on literacy training was also training positive, but it's a very -- you know, that is a -- an enormous slope to climb for all the reasons you suggested. but both trends a